Josh Kerr brings home Olympic silver.

 Josh Kerr brings home silver

Josh Kerr hit the final bend of the Olympic Games 1500 metres Final and suddenly saw the perfect alignment of the stars in the sky. This one had to be seen to be believed. We were anticipating a thrilling finish to the winning line and we got exactly what we were hoping for. But then, four men pulled away from the hunting pack and this one was anybody's race. It was just totally absorbing, a moment of epic monumentality, of breath taking virtuosity, sport at its most most beautiful and supernatural, that isolated point in any athletics race where time stands still and everything becomes a blur. 

Once again, the Olympic Games of 2024 in Paris had delivered magic, wonder and enchantment, a scene from the world of fantasy, four men sprinting for all their worth, legs like pistons, striding away together as if in some private conspiracy, whispering into each other's ears but revealing nothing at all. They were the perfect athletes for the occasion, tailor made to negotiate all those stifling doubts that may have briefly descended on all of them. But Josh Kerr simply turned on the afterburners, bursting away emphatically from the rest of the field, a blistering, burning pace which would narrowly miss out on the big prize with the silver medal that meant the world to him.

But this 1500 metres men's Final belonged to a completely different and parallel universe. We remembered the masterful Kip Keino of Kenya from an Olympic yesteryear and thought we'd seen it all. Keino just blew away his chasers as if they were somehow invisible. Gold was his before any of us had had the chance to breathe, process or rationalise with what we'd just seen. Then there was the celebrated duo of Seb Coe and Steve Ovett  who won gold with long legs the length of a billiard table and the kind of memorable head to head finish that will just echo and resonate down the ages for ever.

Last night Paris was out en masse, proudly patriotic and wildly vociferous, supporting their nation faithfully, the Stade De France once again packed to the rafters. They were backing their nation to the hilt but then recognised that their allegiance to the country was perfectly understandable. And yet on the athletics track once again, Team GB just happened to be conducting the orchestra and doing rather well into the bargain. So the violins and percussion section picked up their instruments and the Brits just continued to make a noise.

When Josh Kerr appeared from behind the purple doors, the French were none too pleased to see what they must have regarded as an impostor, an invader, an unwelcome sight who should never have been there in the first place. So they cheered with another stirring rendition of their National Anthem and all was well again. So the eight men who comprised the 1500 metres field, took their place at the start, leaning forward earnestly, arms akimbo, and faces just fixed again. It would become another Olympic race that would come to define the Olympics, its obvious personality and all of the mannerisms that we've all become accustomed to every four years.

Among the pack were the charismatic American duo of Yared Nuguse and Cole Hocker. Then there was the best of them all and the one so highly fancied as overwhelming favourites with the bookies. Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Norwegian stick of dynamite, exploded from the starting line like an express train. Ingebrigtsen was so fast and determined to pick up his gold medal that it only seemed a matter of time before the race would be declared over before it had even begun. He stormed into the front like a whirlwind and was so confident of his bearings that he might have assumed that the rest of his competitors had just given up the ghost.

With the field stretching out almost inevitably, Ingebrigsten quite literally ran out of steam towards the end, realising that the abundant supplies of petrol he thought he had in the tank were now no more than a trickle. Soon, there was a private gathering of bodies, a collision of mentalities and wits, judging to the exact second the right time to leave the stragglers far behind them. It then became clear that this was just the most intriguingly balanced  middle distance Olympic Final we'd ever seen. There was hardly a cigarette paper between the men leading from the front.

And then on the final lap, the sudden break was made. Ingebrigsten was still narrowly ahead, going towards the final bell but Josh Kerr slowly accelerated before rapidly making ground on the Norwegian. It was a psychological battle that became a middle distance classic. Kerr moved up to Ingebrigsten's shoulder, inching his way past the fading Norwegian. Now we had a race on his hands and the ball was in Kerr's court. By now, Team GB were on their feet in unison. Kerr responded to both the occasion and night and looked as though he'd done enough. With metres to go, one Cole Hocker crept through an inviting gap and just went like a rocket, running like the proverbial wind and sprinting to gold.

Meanwhile, the ladies were having a ball in the Women's 200metres Final. Britain had Dina Asher Smith in Team GB but realistically this was never going to be her night since the opposition had far too much class in their repertoire and weren't about to waste it. Gaby Thomas, one of America's most consistent and durable of performers, lived up to most of her star billing and just breezed home to the gold medal with undoubted style and a most commanding authority while Julien Alfred of the paradise islands of St Lucia could only watch gasping with disbelief but a silver medal nonetheless in her athletic CV. Brittany Brown brought home the bronze for the Americans but by now it was just a consolation prize.

Outside the main athletics track, some of us were trying to come to terms with what seemed like the more idiosyncratic events of this Olympics. Now this is surely a matter of subjective opinion but when skateboarding, trampolining and BMX biking are suddenly spoken of in the same breath as the ancient and traditional narrative of the Olympic Games, you have to keep your judgments to yourself.

We are now days away from the closing ceremony of these Olympic Games in Paris. The drug cheats have yet to surface and may never rear their ugly heads and doping scandals may just have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Sport has never looked so clean and attractive on the eye and the cynics may have to take their scepticism to some other discussion room. Those colourful Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower are simply resplendent and beautifully symbolic. Just ask Cole Hocker. He'll tell all of his family, colleagues and friends. Hocker was the all American hero and we knew the unexpected had become a surprising reality. Paris, take a bow.